


I Always Knew How I’d Die (But I Never Thought I’d Live That Long)

by truelyesoteric



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon - TV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:11:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truelyesoteric/pseuds/truelyesoteric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica Moore was under no illusions. She always knew how she’d die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Always Knew How I’d Die (But I Never Thought I’d Live That Long)

**Author's Note:**

> Re-Tread: I have always wanted this to be true.

Jessica Moore’s first memory wasn’t pink or mom. Her first memory was the portent of her death. Her second memory was her last.

Fire.

Fire and that man.

It was nice to know the face of your own reaper.

&&

When she was six people talked about the Councilman’s daughter, they called her odd.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” They ask.

She’d look at them with her big eyes and blink. “Alive,” she’d tell them.

That Jessica, she was an odd duck. Quiet and a bit morbid.

&&

At eight she decided to be a child prodigy because she figured she wasn’t going to be around forever. She begged her mother to give her lessons; dance, piano, and art.

She had to find out what her contribution to the world was.

Little Jessica Moore was driven. Everyone clucked and was glad that she had grown out of THAT dark phase. For years she tried. She tried to be the best at something. Single-mindedly, she tried everything.

She found out a few things about herself.

She was clumsy and could never pull off a recital without falling. She could easily read notes –they were like a simple puzzle—but she couldn’t make the notes into music. And while she could paint the lines in front of her, she couldn’t give them depth. 

She tried school and she did fine, but there wasn’t anything special about her.

At fourteen she found that she was exceptional, but nothing excellent.

Nobody knew when the Governor’s daughter tried to kill herself.

&&

“Jessica is at boarding school,” her mother would say over tea with various ladies groups. “She loves Europe—she’s getting a great education. She’s always been a free spirit and very curious about everything. We just thought we’d give her wings.”

Jessica spent fourteen locked in a padded cell, begging anyone to believe her that she was going to die burnt to flames.

&&

She didn’t know how it happened, just that it did.

She opened her eyes one morning and blinked. She decided that if she only had a few years to live, she didn’t want to be in this cell. She began to pretend not to remember her delusions. She played dumb. She smiled. She told them what they wanted to hear.

Really, it was easy. She had been lying about this since she was born.

&&

“Jessica is back in California,” her mother would tell the people on the campaign trail. “She has wandered the world, but decided that there is no better state than California. She wants to go to high school here.”

Her parents were the very picture of letting their children make their own choices and having independence. Her parents were the very picture of American values. 

Her parents turned a blind eye to the late hours and the missing alcohol. They left the back door open and bought more vodka.

&&

Johnny Marin was first and hurt like a bitch.

Craig Howard was a sloppy kisser, but when he went between her legs it was a little slice of heaven.

Haven Moore, no relation, was excellent really; kissed like a champ, and fucked her like he loved nothing more. He was her best friend’s boyfriend and it was always where no one could see.

Nate Pierson used her like a whore and, for a while, she forgot why that was a bad thing.

There were random fucks and blowjobs in the corner. She never really paid attention.

She drank in the mornings and skipped out after lunch to smoke pot. She lit cigarettes in the girl’s bathroom and snuck into bars.

It didn’t matter. Senator Moore’s daughter would go to Sanford no matter what.

&&

The first few weeks of college were different. Most kids were reveling freedom, she suddenly felt empty. She cried herself to sleep for the first week—not out of homesickness, but because she didn’t want to be that girl. Everyone was sleeping around, but she had fucked to the point of boredom. Everyone was drinking, and she was finding that the real world was much more alien to her. Everyone was experimenting. She already knew.

Jessica rambled around. 

She never really had anything that was hers. She didn’t know what she liked.

So she looked at everything.

At the end of her freshman year she knew she hated science, but she loved math. She also found that while she couldn’t draw worth a damn, she liked art history. The first was a fascination with puzzles, the second was simply an admiration of beautiful and horrific things. She liked looking at the moments they presented. 

She felt as she always did—that her life had a definite expiration date, but she suddenly felt at peace. She felt as if she had lived and she was finding herself. She wasn’t that crazy girl, she wasn’t the senator’s daughter. She just was JESS. 

And that was fine.

&&

That was fine until the night of her nineteenth birthday when she met Sam Winchester. He was a year ahead of her, pre-law, and quiet was all that she could find out about him.

She hadn’t had a date—well ever—and she hadn’t had sex since she started college. She was actually known as the ice princess.

So she was a little surprised when the boy she thought of as Shy Sam Winchester came up to her the day after her birthday and asked her out to dinner. It really was a first; no alcohol involved, a boy showing interest for more than her body, and he wasn’t shy or scared. He just looked at her calmly waiting.

She looked up to tell him know and she saw something in his eye.

Beneath the determination, beneath the drive that was always clear on his face was an ache that he wouldn’t share with anyone. Jessica only recognized it because it was the same ache that she had been born with.

&&

She had said yes to the date, but she was surprised when she said yes to the second and the third and then when he dropped her off from that one he kissed her chastely. Boys had never treated her with respect, but she knew that this was ridiculous.

“Are you a virgin?” she blurted out as he turned to walk away. She just didn’t know why he was so reserved.

He turned and looked at her with a grin that he had yet to show. It was easy and it was honest and everything that was real.

“No,” he told her, smiling at her like she had finally found some doorway into something.

She looked at him straight on because she realized something. He wasn’t going to let her in until she let him in. She could let him go right now. But there was some self-centeredness in her and she wanted so badly to let someone love her, even if it were for a little period of time. She wanted ONE person at her funeral to have loved her.

“I’m not either,” Jessica said in a rush, “I was a big whore in high school, I did anyone I wanted to.” She stuck her chin out and dared him to look down at her—to look at her like he would use her. 

When he didn’t she said, “I was a weird kid. I turned into a suicidal teenager and then I was a drunken whore and now I’m not and I don’t have any idea who I am I know what I don’t want to be and I just want to find out who I am and that is who I am today.”

His grin faded, but it wasn’t to disgust he looked at her with his jaw slightly agape and his eyes wide.

“I’ve got secrets and I’m guarded and I think you are too, but I want to get to know you Sam Winchester. I can’t tell you all of my secrets and I won’t ask for yours, but I want to know you.”

He looked at her in shock and just when she was about to run away he pulled her to him by both her arms and kissed her. He kissed her like he owned her. 

When he pulled away, her legs were shaking.

“You’re not a virgin,” she said weakly.

“I’m not a virgin,” he said. “I’ve been around more times than I should have. My older brother,” he said with a hitch, “Well lets just say he’s encouraging of me pursuing women. I was a dork in high school and my family is beyond dysfunctional. I left them behind and they disowned me and I have no idea who I am without them. I know what I don’t want to be and I just want to find out who am and that is who I am today.”

At the sound of her own words she thought he was mocking her, but he gave her that smile.

“I’ve never heard anybody say that and that is what I have felt since I left. I’d like to get to know you. Secrets and all.”

&&

And she forgot. After a year and half she forgot. 

She was looking forward to a future. Sure it was Sam’s future, but she forgot that there was an egg timer counting out her days.

She held to her word and never asked Sam’s secrets and she never shared her own.

She was so happy with him, they just fit.

And then the timer went off.

“Jess this is my brother Dean,” Sam was saying.

But Jessica couldn’t see anything. She could only see Dean.

She couldn’t manage the words because she had seen the herald of her death her entire life. 

He smiled and attempted flirting.

Sam left the room and she sat down hard. When he came back and tried to leave he told her he needed to go. His family secrets were all over his voice and she wanted to ask him his secrets. She wanted to tell him that the fire was coming.

But he left and she couldn’t stop herself from crying in incessant sobs. 

When the tears subsided she got up and made cookies.

Because the end was near and that was how she wanted to be remembered.

&&

The last thing she saw, the last thing she saw was Dean’s face as he shoved Sam out of the fire.

Sam was safe.

And the fire had finally come.


End file.
